Supernatural 12x03 "The Foundry"

Well, I guess we have at least a partial answer for how long Mary was going to stick around on the show. For a few episodes, at least. More to come, obviously, but at least she's not dead (yet?!). But I'm getting ahead of myself. Should I be giving a spoiler alert for that? Oh well! I figure most of you who read this must have already watched the episode so whatevs, yo.

Let's get to it! Sam is worried that Mary isn't coping well with this new world of hers, whereas Dean is just jazzed she's back and doesn't really see it, saying she's just coping with it all and will be okay eventually. Mary comes to them with a new case in Minnesota. You know, standard, run of the mill, couple gets lured into an abandoned house by a crying baby that isn't really there and are killed by unknown forces. Typical.

The Winchesters head off to investigate, and discover that the victims actually died of hypothermia, with their hearts frozen solid, totally normal and all. Not! They head over to the house and Mary gets touched by a ghost child, but before she can be frozen to death, Sam and Dean come to the rescue and whisk her away back to the motel of the week, complete with fold up cot. They do some researching wizardry on the interwebs that Mary is rather leery of, and figure it must be some kind of child ghost creature that lures adults to their deaths. Mary isn't so sure, thinking the ghost child wanted her help.

So, while the boys head off to salt and burn some bones, Mary goes back to the house on her own. And of course, Mary is right on this one. The boy does want her help, only he's not alone in the house. There's also a ghost man who proceeds to come after Mary just as the boys figure out where she is and hurry back to her, but not before she gets whammied by the ghost man, who apparently can possess her rather easily.

She tosses around Dean for a bit while Sam goes downstairs and burns the dude's bones that were hidden in the wall the little kid pointed at earlier for Mary. Mary is saved! But is she really? She confesses to the boys later that she doesn't feel quite right in the world - she misses John and the versions of her sons that she knew as just kids. She needs to go away for a while to get things figured out. And the look on Dean's face in this scene is soooo sad. I would say probably the most heartbroken he may have ever been. She tries to give him a hug before leaving, but he steps back. Ah man.

Meanwhile! The adventures of Castiel and Crowley and the search for Lucifer are in motion. Castiel tracks down Lucifer's buddy from the last episode only to find Crowley already there. He proposes they work together. Though Cas is not so enthused about that idea, Crowley does have useful information. You know, like Lucifer has Rowena. Speaking of, Lucifer's current body is starting to degrade, so he wants Rowena to help him make it stronger. Luckily, Rowena actually decides to make it weaker, and then sends him to the bottom of the ocean for a while. Cas and Crowley catch up to her, and she says if they get Luci in a pickle of a spot, she'll come and help them re-cage him.

And that, as they say, is that. For this week, anyway.

Random Thoughts:

- I was wondering how long Mary would stick around. I personally enjoy her presence, but it doesn't seem like the show would ever make her a permanent character. Will she last longer than the season? I somehow doubt it.

- Sorry, but I'm glad that this iteration of Lucifer has bit the dust. Sorry Rick Springfield, but you're no Mark Pellegrino.

- Seriously, though, that look on Dean's face at the end? Heart. Break.

Quotes:

Dean: If Mom wants to hunt, I say we hunt.

Crowley: It's been months, I mean months, since we last tried to kill each other.

Sam: She's trying to bury herself in hunting to avoid dealing.
Dean: And how do you know that?
Sam: Years of experience.

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Supernatural 12x02 "Mamma Mia"

First, I just want to ask - does anyone really care about what Lucifer is going to do anymore? Or Crowley and Rowena for that matter? I mean, I get it. Crowley is fun and always has quippy one-liners, but their story is quite honestly played out. Yet here we are, yet again forced to worry about Lucifer taking over Rick Springfield, sorry Vince Vincente, and planning to... who knows. Do stuff. Who cares.

Meanwhile, Dean and Mary are being awkward around each other while Cas looks for traces of Sam. He eventually finds an old farmhouse that was rented out recently to a woman with a British accent, and oh yeah, it happens to be heavily warded. Now just what in the world could be going on in there? Dean wants to head off on his own to check it out, but Mary's like nope, I'm going with you, sonny boy. Lest we forget, Mary grew up in the hunting world. She knows her stuff.

In that farmhouse, Sam is being mind-tortured by Toni, who is giving him some hallucinatory something that makes him think they've done the nasty and are all chummy. You know, girl, that would've been a better tack than the one you're taking to try to get close to the Winchesters, but clearly you haven't done your research that well. Facts and whatnot don't tell you their personalities, I suppose.

Dean and Mary arrive, and Dean goes to check out the house, promptly getting captured by Toni. She slaps him around a bit, threatens some torture under the eyelid, then Mary powers in and kicks... oh wait, first she gets her own butt kicked, then she does do some butt-kicking of her own. Toni does get her in some kind of mind choke, but Dean manages to knock Toni out before it gets too bad. Nonetheless, it's not all fun and games quite yet. Because Toni's boss Mick shows up to try to smooth things over.

Turns out, the British chapter of the Men of Letters were trying to get friendly with the Americans and work together to help take out the monsters in the US. Somehow, this doesn't ring quite true. Who really knows what they really want. We can only assume that they will end up having to work together, though, to fight some bigger evil sometime soon.

The best parts of this episode were all of the quieter bits with Mary and her boys. Sam got to finally meet his mom face to face, she got to bring Dean some pie and reveal that she never was a cook (the meatloaf came from the Piggly Wiggly), and she and Sam finally got to hug. It was quite touching, I must say. I'd like her to stay around a long time, but who knows if that's going to happen. I have a bad feeling she might die again saving her boys sometime soon. Sigh.

Random Thoughts:

- Really, though, the stuff with Lucifer is just hokey. Isn't it? I really don't care. And not to mention the stuff with the acid face grossness. Blegh.

- A lot of hoopla about this Mr. Catch. He better actually be interesting once he finally shows up.

- What does everyone else think about Mary? Are you enjoying her presence as much as I am?

Quotes:

Cas: Don't make things needlessly complicated as you humans tend to do.

Mary: I can handle myself. 'kay? All right, good talk.

Dean: You were good at this, weren't you?
Mary: Very.

Crowley: He has an aura. Supreme evil!

Dean: Who's Angry Spice?

Mary: We should call the internet and see what we can find out about these people.

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Supernatural 12x01 "Keep Calm and Carry On"

Well, kids, we're back, back again. Much like a long lost Winchester née Campbell, miss Mary. That's right, in case you forgot what happened at the end of last season, Amara decided to give Dean what he's always wanted. Or, some part of it. If she were really for real she would've brought back both of the Winchester parents, but beggars can't be choosers.

Yep. Mary's back, straight from the moment she died burning on that ceiling. Dean manages to convince her of what's happened after laying down some facts about her life and whatnot. But they only have a short time to reminisce, or whatever it is you do in such an awkward position, before they head back to the bunker and realize both Sam and Castiel are missing.

Castiel is alright, he may have gotten blasted away, presumably back up to Heaven or something, but he plummets back down to Earth and makes his way back to the bunker to tell Dean and Mary that some woman was there in the bunker and, presumably, took Sam after blasting him away.

Yep, woman in question is Toni from the UK Men of Letters chapter, who wants to track down all of the US hunters and basically indoctrinate them in how they do things across the pond. Mainly, they track down monsters before they kill anyone, and kill them first. Fairly soundproof plan, although as we've learned through the years, not all monsters are really bad. Nonetheless, after getting a local veterinarian to stitch up Sam's bullet-wounded leg, they take him to some basement to attempt to torture him into telling them what he knows. But, as Sam says, he's been tortured by Lucifer himself, so good luck with that, ladies. Oh yes, Toni has an assistant with her who incidentally I liked better than Toni in these scenes, so you know she's not long for this world.

The new trio of Dean, Castiel and Mary team up to try to figure out where Sam could be by hacking some cameras and eventually finding that veterinarian from earlier, who happens to have Toni's phone number. Dean gives her the ole "give me back my brother, you bitch" speech that he loves to do, and she genuinely does look scared, so she sends her lady minion out to track them down first.

And boy does she, ramming straight into the poor Impala's back side, then proceeding to kick both Dean and Castiel's asses with some fancy brass knuckles, only to be impaled by Mary, because yaaasss mama Winchester should kick some butt, am I right? Of course, she never wanted this hunter life, but what can ya do?

Meanwhile, Toni is torturing Sam with some kind of toxin stuff that makes him see all of the bad things that have happened. He appears to start to lose it, and take a mirror shard to his own neck. But if I know Sam, I know it's a trick. But does Toni know Sam? No. She goes down there, and Sam nearly is able to overpower her and get away. He definitely would have if not for the burnt foot and the bullet hole in his leg. Poor Sammy. But he is not to be rescued in this hour, instead he gets to sit there and be lonely and hurting while Dean and Mary (and Cas) look for him some more.

What's going on with the demons, you wonder? Who the heck are you, wondering such things? Who the F cares anymore? But whatever, Crowley cares. He's been tracking Lucifer, who was not killed by Amara, but instead has been burning through vessels at an alarming rate as he is weak and whatnot. Crowley kills a couple demon minions, yada yada.

And that's about all she wrote for this season premiere. What did you think? Are you looking forward to this season?

Random Thoughts:

- I'm usually against Supernatural bringing people back from the dead, but I admit I am intrigued by Mary being around now. I think it works mostly because she wasn't in the show very much before, so it's not like beating a dead horse or something a la bringing back Bobby.

- I don't really see why Toni felt the need to torture Sam rather than try to work together to get the information. If she had shown up in a more helpful guise, they probably would've just told her everything she wanted to know. But whatever, that is less dramatic, I guess.

- One thing that is interesting about this season is that it's not clear if there is necessarily a "big bad" like in past seasons. To be honest, I kind of like that. For awhile now things have been way too apocalyptic, so hopefully they don't try to introduce another huge big bad again.

Quotes:

Mary: Dean.
Dean: Hi, Mom.

Mary: Is that a computer?
Castiel: Yes. I don't trust them.

Crowley: Well, like they say...duh.

Veterinarian: Student loans are a bitch, okay?

Dean: Saving people. Hunting things. This is our life. I think we make the world a better place. I know that we do.

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